I found this disappointing:
Mostly PRATTs.
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I’d be surprised if there were anything else, given Meyer’s past history.
I’ll admit that I was not disappointed. My expectations were very low.
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Stephen Meyer still making claims and then citing literature that implies the diametrically opposite, like that time he wrote how the Cambrian explosion would require lots of new protein coding genes to evolve and then citied an article by Susumo Ohno that argued that animal diversity having essentially the same fundamental set of genes with most of it owing to regulation of developmental genes instead.
Oh well…
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As to Meyer, I’d agree. But I am disappointed in Newsweek, even though my expectations there aren’t very high.
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At an earlier time in my life, I had a paid subscription to Newsweek. But they have continued to slide into oblivion. They are not anything like what they were when I was a subscriber.
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It’s a case of pandering to what some editor thought would appeal to conservative subscribers.
It could have been an interesting feature if part of a Point/Counter-Point format where there was a response from a competent critique of Meyer and ID.
The argument based upon “the universe having a beginning” (a version of the Kalam Cosmological Argument) reminded me that some day I really need to sit down and grapple with Noether’s Theorem. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Meyer’s address it and I’m still trying to figure out its potential cosmological implications.
Noether's theorem - Wikipedia.
Or I may simply eat my dinner. Haven’t decided yet. (The medically-oriented Wordle-variant called Wordosis is also an option for killing time and is usually more interesting than Meyer’s verbiage. Wordosis | MedPage Today )
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Jerry Coyne responded to this
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Meyer presents three arguments, the latter two which are dissonant. Point two appeals to the necessity of fine tuning, and point three appeals to the insufficiency of blind materialistic processes [fine tuning] to account for biology.
While it is possible to hold to some hobbled form of fine tuning which is necessary but not sufficient, this is not what scientists have in mind and is not properly fine tuning. The parameterized forces considered forged the carbon in our bodies, allowed the time and conditions to have planets such as Earth form, and underlie biochemistry. Life is part of the package, and does not require an extra boost. If God can fine tune the universe, He can do it in such a way to unfold according to plan. Or, according Meyer, He could not.
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